Accessible vehicle firm drives ahead with growth plan

When Bill Koeblitz entered the small retail world of specialty transportation six years ago, he saw an opportunity to make a quick impact in a relatively underdeveloped market.
The business of selling wheelchair-accessible vehicles belonged mostly to mom-and-pop operations with little cash, little inventory and little ambition. So, in 1997, Mr. Koeblitz bought Akron's New Era Transportation, a mom-and-pop in its own right with 12 employees and annual sales of about $2 million.
His investment has paid him back handsomely thus far as MobilityWorks, the company formed from New Era's takeover, is an emerging national retailer of wheelchair-adaptive vans.
'I knew it had real opportunity,' Mr. Koeblitz recalled in a recent interview. 'I was looking for something with a lot of growth possibilities.'
And grow it has. Mr. Koeblitz said the company, which has remained headquartered in Akron, today has about 110 employees spread across seven locations and is expected to surpass $30 million in revenue this year. The company primarily sells and repairs new and used specialty vehicles, but it also manufactures and sells about 600 vehicles each year from its home base.
Now, as new stores take root in Chicago and Pittsburgh, Mr. Koeblitz is looking to expand the company's presence in the Midwest - Chicago and Detroit are in line for additional stores next spring - and to enter other large markets such as Philadelphia and San Francisco.
In addition to its existing locations in Akron, Chicago, Detroit and Pittsburgh, MobilityWorks has stores in Canton, Toledo and Albany, N.Y.
'We're in a very small part of the country right now,' Mr. Koeblitz said. 'We're learning from these stores that we've opened. I'd like to open five more next year.'
Mr. Koeblitz said the time for expansion is now, as baby boomers age and become more fragile.
'We're going to have the wind to our back for the next 20 years,' he said.
It also doesn't hurt that few companies have collared the market like MobilityWorks. The industry's major retail players are similar in size, but they operate primarily in different geographic regions.
New Hampshire-based Ride Away Handicap Equipment Corp. is the largest provider of used wheelchair-accessible vehicles in the Northeast. With its six stores, Ride Away is MobilityWorks' biggest competitor, Mr. Koeblitz said.
But Alan Groedel, president of Cleveland's Provide A Ride specialty transportation service, said much of what's out there pales in comparison to emerging companies such as MobilityWorks and Ride Away. Mr. Groedel began buying vans for his company in 1986 from New Era, because it was close to Cleveland. He continues to buy about 15 vans each year - all from MobilityWorks.
'Bill's kind of got the same vision I had,' Mr. Groedel said. 'I got into this business 15 years ago because I was hell-bent on getting into a business that had a good demographic base.'
Provide A Ride proves to be an easy sell for Mr. Koeblitz, but encouraging other companies and handicapped people to give MobilityWorks a chance can be a challenge.
'Marketing is word of mouth,' he said. 'All you can hope for is people telling people just how good you are.'